


no other sadness in the world would do

by humanluke



Series: 5sos prompts [6]
Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, M/M, So much angst, just a little mention, this is literally just 1K of hurt, uhnhhh i think that's it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:54:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28536210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humanluke/pseuds/humanluke
Summary: calum's whole world falls apart.
Relationships: Calum Hood/Ashton Irwin
Series: 5sos prompts [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019475
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	no other sadness in the world would do

**Author's Note:**

> hi hello the queen of angst is back with her first work of 2021 how are we doing everyone!!! this is based on the prompt "i want you to be happy" from the lovely [san](http://calumsthood.tumblr.com) on tumblr!

“This isn’t going to work anymore,” Ashton says, things packed into two suitcases. Calum had barely made it through the door, hands full of bags of groceries for the week. He nearly dropped them all in the doorway, the words a startling difference from the words of affirmation and love they’d shared over breakfast, kisses in between sticky bites of pancakes and sips of hot coffee on their tongues. 

“What?” was all Calum could manage, looking at him with wide eyes. He set the bags down, careful not to break anything in them. His heart was pounding underneath his rib cage, threatening to burst through and shower bone shrapnel all over the room. He felt like he was being crushed all at once, like he was inside of a trash compactor, tossed aside like he was no longer needed or wanted. 

“I can’t do this anymore, I can’t keep pretending everything is _okay_ ,” Ashton says. His voice is soft, hazel eyes staring down at the carpet. He can’t bring himself to look at Calum, doesn’t want to watch the disaster that he’s brought upon him. “This hasn’t been okay for me for… a long time, Cal. I’ve been trying so hard, I thought it was just something I had to work through, but… I just don’t love you anymore.” Those words are the ones that undo Calum entirely, and he loses all sense of composure he might have had left in his body, the floodgates opening as he looks to Ashton. He’s so confused. He doesn’t understand what happened, where things went wrong. What he’d done wrong to make Ashton stop loving him. 

“How can I fix this? Please, let me fix this,” Calum says, pleading a little bit. He’s certain he sounds absolutely desperate, and he thinks he might fall to his knees, to beg for Ashton to stay. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do without him. Ashton was his entire world. He didn’t know who he was without him by his side, guiding him throughout his life. “Tell me what I can do to make you stay.” Ashton just shakes his head, and he lifts his head, those hazel eyes piercing Calum like an arrow. 

“I can’t make this work for me, Cal,” he says softly. “I don’t know what happened. But I can’t keep going on pretending, lying to you like this. I love you, but not in the way you need me to, you know? And I just…” he trails off for a moment, sliding a hand through caramel curls, ones that Calum has too many memories of sliding his own hands through. “I want you to be happy.” 

“And you think this is going to make me happy? By breaking my heart and tossing me to the curb like that?” Calum asks. His voice is a little shaky, but there’s a new edge to it. Something more akin to anger than anything else. Ashton looks thoroughly hurt, and Calum does too, but in entirely different ways. “Is that all I ever was to you? A stepping stone onto different things? Did this not mean _anything_ to you?” His face is hot with the tears that are still streaming down his face, but also with a mixture of embarrassment and anger. 

“Of course it meant something to me, Cal,” Ashton says, and his voice is soft, gentle, like he’s trying his best not to make this any worse. But it’s well past the point of saving the conversation, and he knows that. “It’ll always mean something to me. But I can’t keep leading you on like everything is _okay_. I still care about you, Calum. I always will. I just… I need to do this to be happy. And I want you to be happy too. And I know you won’t be happy if I’m faking it. I don’t want to hurt you anymore.” 

“So you’re just gonna hurt me all at once,” he says, almost coolly, in spite of the flood of tears on his face. “Everything was fine this morning, Ash, everything’s been fine. Have you just… been lying to me all this time? Has this all been fake for you?” Calum is still trying to wrap his head around the whole thing, and he’s feeling too many emotions all at once. He wants to scream and cry and break things and do anything, everything for Ashton to stay. That’s all he wants, is for him to stay. But he knows that’s a lost cause by now. 

“I haven’t felt anything for you for… a couple of months now,” Ashton admits, averting his gaze, and that twists the knife in Calum’s proverbial back. “I tried so hard to keep going, but it’s just… not working for me. I’m sorry. It’s better for us this way.” He picks up his bags, looking back to Calum. “Just… take care of yourself.” He steps past Calum in the doorway, over the bags of groceries that he’d bought for them, and heads out the door without another word.

Which is how Calum has ended up here, sitting on the floor of his house, knuckles bruised and bloodied, a dent in the wall of his living room, a shattered photo frame on the floor. His hand is throbbing from hitting it so hard, and he wonders briefly if maybe he’s broken it, but the physical pain is a welcome distraction from the emotional pain resonating in his chest, aching through his bones and pulsating through his blood stream with each beat of his broken heart. 

While most of the night feels like a blur, he can still remember the moment when Ashton took his heart and crushed it between his fingers, causing this aching that was still taking over his entire body. He looks down at his knuckles, blue and black blossoming over his skin before looking at the wall, the spot he had punched that had once held a photo of the two of them. 

They had been so happy, he thought. He was happy, at least. The feelings, however, were apparently one sided, according to Ashton last night. He’d been sitting in this spot for… he doesn’t know how long now. He’d stopped long enough to put his groceries away, not wanting to waste them between the tears. That was when he’d seen the photo of them on the wall, leaving the kitchen and heading towards his room, and lost all focus and control. 

So he sits here, cradling his hand and his heart, trying to pick up his broken pieces one at a time, wondering silently for a beat if Ashton feels the same.

He knows he doesn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me or send me prompts on [tumblr](http://cakelftv.tumblr.com)!


End file.
